


Terminal

by waterbird13



Series: Tumblr Fics [249]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Cancer, Gen, The Trials, s8, terminal illness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-11
Updated: 2016-10-11
Packaged: 2018-08-21 22:17:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8262332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waterbird13/pseuds/waterbird13
Summary: Sam takes on the Trials because he's dead either way, but Dean...Dean has a chance to live.





	

Sam’s known for months.

Pancreatic cancer. Less than twenty five percent of people who have it survive, and the number decreases dramatically the longer they take to detect it.

By the time Amelia made him see a doctor–for the gastrointestinal issues, the poor appetite, the weight loss, the constant pain, and, the most shocking of all, the seeming jaundice–the cancer had already progressed significantly. 

Sam is going to die.

Sam is going to die soon, actually. Frankly, he’s pushing it as it is.

He should have told Dean. But there’s no where to insert “and by the way, I’m dying and there’s nothing you can do about it” in a conversation, especially when Dean is so mad at him. Especially when what you do for the dying and dead is such a standing issue between them. Especially when Sam’s time alone is something Dean won’t forget but doesn’t want to actually know about.

How stupid of Sam, to think that he could die in peace, have a dog, a house, love a woman, live a life, die a man who really had it all. It was selfish to want, perhaps, but it had been his fondest wish.

Then Don had returned, and Sam knew Amelia deserved a husband who could grow old with her, the man she chose to marry. So he’d moved on, to die alone. To die in absolute peace.

Then Dean came back, and Sam had a role to fill once more, and dying in peace is no longer an option. Not that dying is out, because dying is the one thing that’s not optional, and it’s drawing closer and closer every single day.

They all die. Hunters die young. Hunters die bloody. Sam isn’t sure what’s worse, the disease killing him from the inside out, or the bloody, violent death at werewolf claws or wendigo teeth.

And then, his mind is made up. Because he’s going to be dying of his disease, but in the end, hunting is going to get to him regardless.

Maybe the Trials won’t kill him. Maybe they will. Bottom line is, he’s dead regardless, and Dean doesn’t have to be.

Dean doesn’t have to die. Dean shouldn’t die, because Dean is worth so much more than his bloody end trying to do one more thing to save the world.

But Sam? At this point in time, that’s exactly what Sam’s worth. A bloody end to save the world. With the time he has left, he might as well do something with it.

Besides, a death to complete the Trials is something Dean can understand. And it’s maybe even a death Dean can forgive him for, at the end of the day. Sam knows full well he can’t say the same thing about cancer. If everything goes as he assumes it will, then Dean will never have to know the truth. He might even come around, and appreciate Sam’s sacrifice, or, at the very least, forgive him.

Sam can only hope. As a dying man, hope is pretty much all he has.


End file.
